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This Christmas

Hallmark cribbing
By CHRIS BRAIOTTA  |  November 20, 2007
1.5 1.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for This Christmas.

Christmas movies have always meant boring white people going home to settle lifelong resentments and eat ham. It’s only fair that black folks get a crack at re-enacting these insipid mechanics. As artificially homy as a plug-in air freshener, writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II’s This Christmas fills the bill. The unwieldy ensemble story has no fewer than six grown kids staying with mom (Loretta Devine), each cramming hangers-on and manufactured conflict into a bland, overstuffed lump. There’s not a single moment that doesn’t bristle with exposition and cliché — only Idris Elba as Quentin and Delroy Lindo as Joe give the film’s Hallmark cribbing anything resembling life. 117 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Suburbs
Related: Hope springs infernal, Crossover, Review: Obsessed, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Movies, Delroy Lindo,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY CHRIS BRAIOTTA
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS  |  February 06, 2008
    “I wonder how this can possibly end?” Wait, sorry, I meant, “When will this possibly end?”
  •   HOW SHE MOVE  |  January 23, 2008
    The dance sequences suffer for the lack of gloss, but it’s a fair trade because tiny bursts of drama erupt whenever the plot looks the other way.
  •   PREGNANT PAUSE  |  December 12, 2007
    Jason Reitman’s film makes the most of a few great ideas.
  •   THIS CHRISTMAS  |  November 20, 2007
    Christmas movies have always meant boring white people going home to settle lifelong resentments and eat ham.
  •   O JERUSALEM  |  October 24, 2007
    In its attempt to cover the 1948 war that kicked off modern Israel, Elie Chouraqui’s O Jerusalem forges a regrettable two-state solution.

 See all articles by: CHRIS BRAIOTTA

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